Friday

The Wackiest Things I Ever Created:In a Key West State of Mind

I should have be born a conch. For anyone born north of Miami, " a Conch" does not refer to slow moving creature that lives in a shell on the ocean floor. Its the indigenous people of a magical little island at the tip of the Florida Keys.... Key West. Claiming to have seceded from the Union during the Civil War, locals refers to Key West as "The Conch Republic."

As a child growing up in Hawaii, our family took our vacations back to the mainland and headed directly to the Florida Keys. We'd spend a month traveling up and down the bridges that connected the little islands between Key Largo and Key West. The Keys are in my blood. Since every ha'oli (Caucasian) in Hawaii is obviously not from the South Pacific, when people would ask me where I was from, it was only logical for me to claim Key West...the only place I knew on the mainland.

Key West is not only a place... it's a state of mind. When I take friends to the island, I tell them, "You'll either get it or you won't." Like Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, Harry Truman and Jimmy Buffet...I "get it". I am "She Who Loves Key West"

Oh yeah, I should have been born a conch. Click Hereto read my poem about the Keys. Then, if you, "get it" too, drop me a note and tell me. I love hearing from wacky women who live in a "Key West State of Mind." suzy@suzytoronto.com